The Best of 2017

Looking over my reading for the past year, I am struck by how much of what I've read is utterly forgettable. Even books that, by title, I recognize as having liked are now, months later, reduced to a hazy memory.

There are, of course, exceptions. Shogun is far and way the best book I read this year - and as I said when I reviewed it initially, possibly ever. The details of James Clavell's masterpiece, the central part of which is the Anjin-san's adaption to and ascent within sixteenth century samurai culture, are still fresh.

Two other works of fiction also number among the best books I've read this year: A Man Called Ove and The Housekeeper and the Professor. A Man Called Ove made me laugh out loud more times than I can count, and reminded me of Owen Meany in all the best ways. The Housekeeper and the Professor is a totally different animal, and so very Japanese (yes, I acknowledge possible bias), but the contours of the sweet story of an amnesiac professor and the housekeeper who befriends him are still fresh.

As always, I read a great deal of non-fiction and here I had a harder time separating the very best from the merely very good. In the end, The Mushroom Hunters, Hidden Figures, and The Radium Girls take the prize. I loved the latter two for shedding light on historical episodes that were previously only shadows in my mind - and for acknowledging the contributions of the women who were central to the events. And Mushroom Hunters...well, who knew that one of my favorite foods could have such a complex and colorful supply chain?

I also want to acknowledge the excellent biographies and memoirs I discovered this year. Chicken Every Sunday, which warms my soul to remember, and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind are memoirs of the first order. They could not be more different - the former offers nostalgic reminisces on life in small town America in the early twentieth century, and specifically of the author's childhood growing up in the boarding house her parents ran, while the latter is the hard scrabble story of survival amidst the famines and deprivation of modern-day, rural Malawi. Both, however, are simply wonderful. I would be remiss not to include Eve of a Hundred Midnights among my "best of" picks, as well. Written in the style of a non-fiction novel, Eve is essentially a biography of Melville Jacoby and, more to the point, the story of his flight across Asia and the South Pacific when the Philippines fell.

Lastly, I have to award and honorable mention to Celia Garth, if for no other reason that her pluck and spirit made her my favorite character that I encountered this year.

 And so, while much of what I read may have been (and may continue to be) rather forgettable, so much isn't, and that what keeps me turning the pages. Here's to another year of reading - may your New Year also include many happy hours of reading pleasure.